Gold: $470.60/oz

[Pat McCotter]

Right, it is backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States government."

[Lex]

I think land, tools and property are more valuable than gold.

You can't eat gold, use it to power your car, keep yourself warm in winter, etc.


I remember when I was growing up in Ukraine my grandma would always stock pile stuff, never money. We had cartons of soap, clothes of all sorts and lots of fabric for making clothes, candles, cans of food. My grandma grew vegetables on our balcony (we lived in an apartment building).

In a sense to me gold is just as valuable as fiat currency. Gold is just a metal just like fiat money is just paper.

So unless you own a microprocessor fabrication plant I don't think gold is a good investment. Buy land.

[Gabo]

I believe the ideal form of currency would be some sort of capsulated energy that could be easily used for tons of things.
You could simply take out your energy wallet, hook it up to someone else's, and transfer over joules to buy whatever you wanted.

[Lloyd Danforth]

The ideal currency is, Money, preferably, made of or backed by something of inherent and universally accepted value, to limit inflation.
Energy is a commodity. Trading commodity for commodity is limiting and a step backwards.
A person living in NYC or boston in an apartment building, using public transportation has no use for energy in their wallett.  They could trade some of it to their landlord for the heat and air conditioning and some to the transportation agency, but, not all.  It would have to be convertablie to something else.
Stick with money.

[Lex]

Plus with hydrogen power you can make energy basically out of water. All you need is some sun to power the converter and some water to produce the hydrogen. And you have high quality energy at your finger tips.

Make your own hydrogen car for $80
http://www.fuelcellstore.com/cgi-bin/fuelweb/view=Item/cat=/product=849/action=av/vid=44444

[AlanM]

That is really neat. 
Mixing solar and hydrogen makes sense. While you are away the system soaks up sun to create the power to convert the water to hydrogen. 

[Lex]

That is really neat. 
Mixing solar and hydrogen makes sense. While you are away the system soaks up sun to create the power to convert the water to hydrogen. 

Also, as far as I understand hydrogen would store energy MUCH better then any battery could if you were to just convert the suns energy into electricity and put it in a car battery or something the energy would slowly leak. And hydrogen is just a gas, so as long as you can contain it, it should be all good. (hydrogen does explode big time though, so you probably woudl want to keep it as far away from the house as possible  )

[AlanM]

That is really neat.?
Mixing solar and hydrogen makes sense. While you are away the system soaks up sun to create the power to convert the water to hydrogen.?

Also, as far as I understand hydrogen would store energy MUCH better then any battery could if you were to just convert the suns energy into electricity and put it in a car battery or something the energy would slowly leak. And hydrogen is just a gas, so as long as you can contain it, it should be all good. (hydrogen does explode big time though, so you probably woudl want to keep it as far away from the house as possible? )

You could use the hydrogen to power a generator for your house power, too. Solar power generally works backwards with the weather, not enough when you really need it. Being able to store the suns power by converting it to hydrogen makes it available WHEN you need it.

[Lex]

That is really neat. 
Mixing solar and hydrogen makes sense. While you are away the system soaks up sun to create the power to convert the water to hydrogen. 

Also, as far as I understand hydrogen would store energy MUCH better then any battery could if you were to just convert the suns energy into electricity and put it in a car battery or something the energy would slowly leak. And hydrogen is just a gas, so as long as you can contain it, it should be all good. (hydrogen does explode big time though, so you probably woudl want to keep it as far away from the house as possible  )

You could use the hydrogen to power a generator for your house power, too. Solar power generally works backwards with the weather, not enough when you really need it. Being able to store the suns power by converting it to hydrogen makes it available WHEN you need it.

And the exhaust from your generator is just steam!

[Gabo]

Energy is a commodity. Trading commodity for commodity is limiting and a step backwards.

Whether it is used as the actual currency, or whether it is the backing, I believe energy is the most useful thing to use.

A person living in NYC or boston in an apartment building, using public transportation has no use for energy in their wallett.  They could trade some of it to their landlord for the heat and air conditioning and some to the transportation agency, but, not all.  It would have to be convertablie to something else.

One thing is for sure.

Energy is a HELL of a lot more useful than gold or silver is.  And where do you get off saying the person has no use for the energy?
Energy will power their AC system, their television, their computer, and nearly anything else they use in life.
Energy is the most precise measure of a person's labor, so it makes sense that it should be the basis for a currency.

[Ron Helwig]

Energy is a commodity. Trading commodity for commodity is limiting and a step backwards.

Whether it is used as the actual currency, or whether it is the backing, I believe energy is the most useful thing to use.

Energy doesn't make sense for use as a currency because it can be created (thus causing inflation).

What happens to the economy when they finally figure out cold fusion, or hot fusion for that matter?
What happens when we get government off the backs of the nuclear power plants and power becomes cheaper?

How do you carry it? Would you drive around with an 18-wheeler carrying a big battery?

Gold's most useful quality, with respect to currency, is the stability of the amount of it out there.

[tracysaboe]

Once they figure out Cold Fusion (BTW a theoretical impossibility. At least at this point.) and figure out how to build replicators and atomic nanno-machines (which doesn't violate any theoretical laws of physics) it just means that the poorest person on the planet will be easily 10 times wealthier then the richest person is now.

It's possible that we will reach a day when everything is so cheep that all of a person's needs would be provided for on less then $1/year (in todays cheaop worthless inflated dollars)

A person would be able to work menial labor for 1 year save all of his money except the basic expenses and then retire and be set for life.

Now that's a few years away but w/ the current advances in nannotechnology it 3 or 4 years from now all of our lives could be considerably wealthier.

So if energy inflates a lot it probably wouldn't inflate near as much as the products that energy is used to make. And if individuals still prefer gold (of course if replicators are invented gold really wouldn't be worth much either.)

People will figure out for themselves what medium of exchange they want to use.

Tracy

[tracysaboe]

Plus with hydrogen power you can make energy basically out of water. All you need is some sun to power the converter and some water to produce the hydrogen. And you have high quality energy at your finger tips.

Make your own hydrogen car for $80
http://www.fuelcellstore.com/cgi-bin/fuelweb/view=Item/cat=/product=849/action=av/vid=44444

That's still a pretty expensive way to power a real car. But with the price of gas skyrocketing 60% a year or more . . . .  It won't be long before it's worth it.

Tracy

[Lex]

Plus with hydrogen power you can make energy basically out of water. All you need is some sun to power the converter and some water to produce the hydrogen. And you have high quality energy at your finger tips.

Make your own hydrogen car for $80
http://www.fuelcellstore.com/cgi-bin/fuelweb/view=Item/cat=/product=849/action=av/vid=44444

That's still a pretty expensive way to power a real car. But with the price of gas skyrocketing 60% a year or more . . . .  It won't be long before it's worth it.

Tracy

I wasn't necessarily thinking of power a car. That would be just too much work to do yourself. What may be practical is to power the heating in your home or other simple lower power things around the house.

[tracysaboe]

$570.40!!!

Remember it fell back down to $540 or so, when the interest rates went up. But it's back up now and very stable.

We'll see $600 before the end of the month (FEB).

Tracy